Runaway Rumor

When someone starts an ominous rumor about Chicago's Continental
Illinois Bank, people generally listen.
Reason: the whispered tales have often been true. Continental, the
biggest banking company (assets: $41.4 billion) between San Francisco
and Manhattan, has during the past two years established an unfortunate
record of making loans that go sour. In 1982 it suffered a major blow
from the failure of Oklahoma City's Penn Square Bank, which had sold
Continental $1 billion in shaky energy loans. Currently, its
beleaguered borrowers run the gamut from Argentina to International...